


THANATOS

by BubbaKnowlton



Series: Mother of Monsters/Echidna AU [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Child Death, Childbirth, Death in Childbirth, M/M, Monster Babies, Mpreg, Temporary Character Death, mother of monsters/Echidna AU, xeno/alien Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 06:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11075922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubbaKnowlton/pseuds/BubbaKnowlton
Summary: The Mother of Monsters/Echidna!Hux AU is created by the_Archivist and IHux wants to continue the species, but is unaware of the consequences.Ren can never tell him the truth.





	THANATOS

**Author's Note:**

> And the breaking point for after the Climax takes root  
> This takes place about a week after Mother of Pearl Bones  
> Funfact I actually finished this story the day before I finished Mother of Pearl Bones  
> Also, the first line is from Milo, and will be said during second stage of pre-breaking point after the Climax

**THANATOS (Key)**

" _Don't you know an immature Allmother will die if they have an Allmother child?_ "

-

After being captured and then rescued from the Republic collector, Hux had been more clingy than ever. It was nice, of course, but Ren was feeling a bit suffocated. Hux was crammed up against him, and all the kids had gathered on the bed. All 36 of them. He had one of the starfish ones on his face, a spiky one that made him terrified to move with how close their arm was to his eye.

The orange one was on top of Hux's head, and Ren wished they would change places with their sibling. He wouldn't move them himself, knowing they were heavily traumatized from the whole incident, having been physically injured and tormented. Their arm was still growing back, just a stump compared to the remaining four, and their eye still had a mark on it. Moving them would scare them awake, and they'd freak out again. Then Hux would be distressed, which would distress the rest of the kids. It'd already happened once, and Ren didn't want it to happen again. Hux needed to relax with the kids. He'd been through enough.

Argent snuffled, and shoved against Hux's side to be even closer to him. Phoenix squeaked as they were bumped into, feathers ruffling. Ren reached over, careful not to jostle the child on his face, to pat their back until they calmed down, giving a satisfied peep.

-

Ren woke up on his own, and found that Hux was partially on top of him, and seemed to be having a bad dream. He wrapped an arm around him, and stroked his hair. The starfish children were gone, returned to their place living inside of their older sibling until further notice. Hux didn't look soothed at all, so he gently woke him. Hux opened his eyes, looking disoriented. "Huh?" He lifted his head.

"You were having a nightmare."

"Oh." Hux rested his head back on Ren's chest. "Yes, I was." He quieted down, but didn't go back to sleep.

He looked deep in thought. "What's wrong?"

"I was thinking about something my father once said to me. My mother willed me to be born, apparently."

"What does that mean?"

"Well... I have all the kids, but they're not my species. They're just hybrids. Because they're all accidental. Obviously, I could have a child that's the same species as me, but only if I want to."

"Do you want to?"

"Yes, I think so. That collector seemed to believe I was extremely rare, and nothing comes up in the databank when I search for Allmother. We should keep the species going."

Ren thought they had plenty of children, too many, if he was being honest. "If you really want to, I guess we could try."

-

Something felt off about Hux, and Ren was worried about him. His Force presence felt strange and weak. Sometimes it would diminish, and Hux would get dizzy. After a minute of rest, he'd be back to normal and his life force would be only slightly weaker than it was before the episode.

The baby was growing fast, so Ren wasn't too worried about the dizzy spells erasing Hux's whole life force before he gave birth. After just a few days he was already fairly large. 

What disturbed Ren the most was that when Hux got an ultrasound, the machine wasn't distorted with the force, and that the baby looked human. He'd long accepted that the kids would all look alien, and never showed up on an ultrasound machine, so seeing a human fetus' imagery pop up on the screen was bizarre.

Hux was happy about it, at least. He was always happy to be having another child, but this one was all the more exciting since they'd planned for it.

The pregnancy was one of Hux's shortest, only lasting a week. The next day, his water broke. By then, his Force presence was fluctuating so often and by so much that it was giving Ren a headache. It would shrink and grow at a rapid pace, and Hux deteriorated as the contractions increased in frequency and strength far quicker than they'd ever done. Ren tried to make him more comfortable, rubbing his back and helping him shift positions, but nothing helped. He gradually got weaker, and eventually just settled on Ren's lap, miserable and pale.

He looked like he was dying, and Ren kept prodding at him to make sure he was alive whenever he looked too still. He'd only relax when Hux grumbled and shifted. This was the first time he'd ever genuinely feared for Hux's life during labor, and he didn't like it at all. He had a medical droid come up and monitor Hux's vitals. They slowly decreased, and the droid couldn't find any physical reason for it.

"How are you feeling?" Hux's hands were cold, and he didn't squeeze back when Ren held one. 

"Tired..."

"Get some sleep, then. I've got you." Hux closed his eyes, and Ren kept an eye on the heart monitor the droid had on its chest. 

After a few minutes, the droid said, "Sir, I recommend bringing the General to the medbay for further examination and monitoring. The other medics may have some treatments for him."

"Alright."

"Shall I call for a gurney?"

"No, I'll carry him." He lifted up Hux. The movement woke him, and he mumbled. "I'm taking you to the medbay, go back to sleep."

-

None of the medics could offer a solution. All they could do was hook him up to monitor his vitals, and give him an IV with some mild pain relief.

Hux woke up when the pain got worse and he needed to push. He shifted weakly, and a medic strapped his legs into stirrups and spread them. Ren tilted the bed up to the angle he knew Hux preferred, somewhere between sitting up and laying back. His life force stopped pulsing, and instead started to fade as he pushed. It got weaker the closer the baby was to being born, and a medical droid fixed an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose when he started having trouble breathing.

"Hux, you have to make it. The kids need you, I need you." Hux didn't respond, focusing on pushing.

The head came out, and Hux's vitals all dropped. The droid looked up at Ren. "We're losing him, sir. Preparing to suction the child out."

"He can't die!"

"The child is out." The baby wailed as the droid cleaned it off and cut the cord. "It is perfectly healthy. Sir?"

"Hux...?" The monitoring machines were all beeping and flashing red. Ren tried to sense Hux with the Force, but there was nothing there. "No, no..." This couldn't be real, it couldn't. This had to be an awful nightmare. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will himself to wake up, but it didn't work. 

The droid cheerfully shoved the screaming child into his arms. "The child survived, sir! Isn't that good? I will call someone to dispose of the General's dead body."

Hearing it was even worse. He shoved the droid away with the Force and crushed it, feeling dizzy. Why did this have to happen? Hux hadn't had a hard birth since their first, and that was only due to size. It'd been blood loss and exhaustion that almost killed him then, not something completely unknown like this. Maybe if he'd forced Hux to go to a real medcenter they would have been able to do something.

The baby was still wailing, and even if he were to spend the rest of his life thinking of everything he should have done, Hux was still dead. 

He vaguely noticed his reflection on the droid's wreckage, and thought briefly, ' _My eyes aren't that color._ ' He didn't have yellow eyes, he had brown eyes, just like some of the kids did. He looked down at the baby. Though his vision was blurry with tears, he could see their eyes were shut.

The baby felt wrong, in the Force. The kids all had their own bright, individual Force presences that gave him a warm feeling. This one was cold and sharp and draining. The dizziness increased, and he realized that this child had just sucked all of Hux's life force for itself.

It killed him.

-

Ren decided to blame the baby's death on a cord wrapped around its neck, knowing he couldn't tell Hux, whose vitals were rising steadily, what had actually happened. The bruises would be easily explained by that, and Hux never had to know. His eyes had already faded back to their normal brown as soon as Hux had started to breathe again, and he'd wiped the security tape and crushed the droid's memory chip.

He wrapped up the baby in a towel, hating it but needing to play the part of grieving for it. He knew Hux would be upset, but he'd be comforted at the belief that it had been stillborn for a perfectly normal reason that couldn't be detected.

Hux started to wake up soon after that. Ren took his place next to the bed. "Hux? Armitage?"

The ginger's eyes opened, and Ren felt like he could have started crying again, but forced himself not to. "Ren...?" He tried to sit up, but Ren forced him to lie back down. "What happened?"

"You almost died. The medics couldn't figure out why you were doing so badly, but you kept going. I helped a bit with the Force."

"Told you I'm strong..." Hux smiled, and Ren felt guilty. "Is that the baby? Give me-"

"Hux, wait." Seeing that his expression was still depressed, Hux was confused. "The baby... they didn't make it."

"What?"

"They were stillborn. The cord wrapped around their neck. There was nothing the medical droid could do, it was already dead as it came out."

"No..." Hux looked horrified.

Ren handed him the baby's body. "I'm sorry." Hux took it and unwrapped the towel. 

"It looks just like you."

-

Hux only held it for a few minutes before having Ren call in a medic to take it for disposal. After that, a medic checked him over, gave him a few injections, and then let Ren take him back to his quarters with the orders that Hux stay on bed rest for at least a week and get nutrient supplements each day.

Ren gently carried him, careful not to jostle him at all. As soon as they were in the room, they were greeted with the sight of all the kids huddled up on the bed. They all looked like they were scared and had been crying.

They'd probably sensed Hux die, and had not understood what that feeling was. Ren put Hux down on the bed, and the kids moved out of the way. They clearly wanted to swarm Hux, but instead carefully crawled onto him. None of them made any noise, all just hugging him and glad that he was there.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow/talk to me on Tumblr! @Oblioknowlton or @Tinybibmpreg


End file.
